Posted on 02/24/2014 10:20:59 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
As the battle on Maidan ends with the defeat and humiliation of President Viktor Yanukovych, some observers have turned their attention to Ukraine's Crimea region with the following question: If Ukraine turns toward the European Union and the West, will President Vladimir Putin move to seize Crimea?
While Crimea is situated far from the drama of Kiev, it stands out as the only region in Ukraine where Russians are in the majority, constituting about 60 percent of Crimea's population. There is also a critical naval base at Sevastopol that the Russians lease from Ukraine. Sevastopol serves as the home of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, and it gives the Russian Navy direct access to the Mediterranean Sea. Russia has signed a lease agreement with Ukraine that allows its fleet to remain at Sevastopol until 2042.
For two centuries, Crimea was part of Russia, and to many Russians it is only through a strange quirk of Soviet history that Crimea is not part of Russia today. On Feb. 19, 1954, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, gifted Crimea to Ukraine as a gesture of goodwill to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's merger with tsarist Russia. Not surprisingly, at the time, it did not occur to anyone that one day the Soviet Union might collapse and that Ukraine would again be an independent country.
Last week, one of Putin's leading advisers, Vladislav Surkov, visited Crimea and met Crimean leader Anatoly Mogilev, Crimean legislative Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov, and Sevastopol Governor Vladimir Yatsuboi. The talks were followed up by a meeting in Moscow on Feb. 20 between Konstantinov and Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the State Duma.
Underscoring Russia's interest in Crimea, an unidentified Russian government official told the Financial Times on Feb. 20 that Russia was willing to fight a war over Crimea if Ukraine started to disintegrate. "If Ukraine breaks apart, it will trigger a war," the official said. "They will lose Crimea first [because] we will go in and protect [it], just as we did in Georgia."
This viewpoint seems to reflect Kremlin thinking. At a 2008 meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush, Putin reportedly told Bush that Ukraine was an accident of history.
There is ample precedent, furthermore, to believe that if Putin and the Russian establishment believed that Ukraine was slipping permanently out of their grasp, then Russia would find a pretext to seize Crimea. Russia has made it amply clear that it considers the former Soviet Union to be a space where it sees itself having wide latitude for maneuver.
Russia has not hesitated to act militarily within the former Soviet Union, first in the self-proclaimed Transdnestr republic in 1992 and then in South Ossetia in 2008 during its brief war with Georgia. After the end of the war in Georgia, Russia became the only country in the world to officially recognize the independence of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. While Russia does not officially recognize Transdnestr, it has a consulate there, many of Transdnestr's citizens have Russian passports and the Russians provide a de-facto guarantee of Transdnestr remaining separate from Moldova.
If Ukraine turns decisively West, it may well find that it is forced to leave Crimea behind.
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Josh Cohen is a former U.S. State Department official who was involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. He currently works for a satellite technology company in the Washington area.
Unlikely to be a seizure. More a very willing secession, since they are ethnic Russians.
there should be two elements of Ukraine to settle this issue
The same applies to the US
Yes.
It wont be tagged as him seizing the AO. Nope. It’ll be tagged, both by his and our media, as Russia coming to the aid of an oppressed minority.
The Ukraine won’t sit still for it. The legit portion of The Ukraine, anyway.
It will then turn into a full blown civil war much in the form of the Spanish civil war.
Poland has already, more or less, declared for the western Ukraine. I suspect Hungry to do the same soon.
The EU will interfere in their usual passive aggressive, cowardly and mealy mouthed manner as well.
Europe will write memos. It will not fight for the freedom of the Ukraine.
To Khrushchev it wasn't just a gift....He was trying to win a power struggle at the time, and he needed to win over the Ukrainians he ruled over as Stalin's appointed boss.
Crimean main anti-Russian element are Muslim Turkish leftovers, making between 10 and 15% population. It is enough to make troubles.
The Kenyan bastard’s weakness and cowardice practically invites a Russian attack and has brought us to the verge of World War III.
>>(including the Holodomor - its equivalent of the Holocaust)<<
Not again...
F the EU.
That's correct - a strong, self-reliant Ukraine will never again have millions of its people deliberately starved to death by Russian overlords.
>>>That’s correct - a strong, self-reliant Ukraine will never again have millions of its people deliberately starved<<<
Really hope for that, but I was mostly referring to Holodomor myth you have brought up.
Pretty much.....that part of the Ukraine would prefer
to remain Russian. If such a partition could be arranged
peacefully then so be it. Putin however is not particularly
subtle. Things could get ugly if they don’t go his way.
Hard to believe Russia would let Crimea go. They didn’t expel the Tatars en masse for nothing.
They have already hauled up the Russian tricolor and taken down the Ukrainian flag.
The new authorities in Kiev are more bent on seeking revenge than in working for national unity.
Moscow would not mind if Ukraine split up and for most Russians the NovoRossiya has always been part of the Motherland.
Same issues as Georgia.
Half pro Russian or transplanted Russian Nationals...Other half wants independence and there is also a religious aspect.
This is all far from over..and even when victory is declared by one side or the other, it’s still not over..
“Europe will write memos. It will not fight for the freedom of the Ukraine.”
That’s, basically what I meant.
Add to it, though, that the EU will invent some way to blame the Russian atrocities on the US, while demanding that the US “do something!” to fix it.
Stalin’s famine affected Russia as well, especially the Kuban valley. If we are going to talk about Stalinist crimes, you should also look at what Stalin did to the Crimean Tatars. The crimes of a Georgian communist are no reason to force Russians and Tatars to be slaves to Ukraine. Ukraine should have self-determination and so should Crimea and eastern oblasts like Luhansk.
The West should abandon its obsession with keeping a disparate people together within borders set by foreign colonial powers, and not by the people themselves. Crimea and eastern Ukraine should have a fair vote, and if a supermajority (say 60%) want to secede, they should be allowed to do so.
US policy has been schizophrenic, promoting the breakup of Yugoslavia, while insisting that Bosnia and Herzegovina remain as one country. Then wanting Kosovo to split from Serbia while not letting its Serb parts remain in Serbia.
In each case, US sided with Muslims, who are not known for liking compromise or living peaceably with other religions.
Eritrea Muslims didn’t want to live under Ethiopian Christians, so that’s OK.
And somehow we let South Sudan free to fight among themselves.
Iraqis are still killing each other because we tried to make one nation out of three. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia (Somaliland) should be broken up into uncivilized parts and half-civilized parts. Libya and Syria, too. Maybe I’ll move to the Republic of Texas.
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